Professor Uses Tech to Tackle Social Problems A Mason Engineering professor is using the power of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle social problems on the web by analyzing social media messages. Hemant Purohit, assistant professor of information sciences and technology, has been working with Bonnie Stabile from the Schar School of Policy and Government for the last two years on their multidisciplinary research project to use AI techniques to look at the connection between social media and its impact on policy and law and the way people perceive misleading or misguided information on the web. “We address this problem of how policies to support women’s empowerment are undermined due to the way women are negatively socially constructed in online social spaces by people with potentially malicious intent,” says Purohit. “Like the Stanford swimmer sexual assault case, where some people took a stand for the accused and they were maliciously creating uncertainty about the survivor.” Purohit and his PhD student Rahul Pandey, in collaboration with Stabile and her PhD student Aubrey Grant, created a computational framework to collect, process, and analyze social media messages discussing rape or sexual assault topics using natural-language
34 VOLGENAU SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ANNUAL REPORT 2020
